Italy

Italy has been the home of many European cultures, such as the Etruscans and the Romans, who built a great empire, and later was the birthplace of the University, the Renaissance, modern science and astronomy, heliocentrism and Opera. Italy's capital, Rome, was for centuries the center of Western civilization. Italy possessed a colonial empire from the second half of the 19th century to the mid-20th century.

In the 1920s, Italy birthed Fascism, arguably a backlash against all that Italy had produced in the centuries before. It entered World War II as a founding member of the Axis, and was defeated.

In the years following the war, Italy voted to end its status as a monarchy, and officially became a republic.

A sizable number of Italian immigrants added to the diverse population of the United States of Atlantis in the 19th century. An Italian-Atlantean named La Strada held an important post in the Hanover police department. James Walton observed that such an appointment would be unlikely to happen in London.

In the late 20th century, popular fronts in Italy brought country under the sway of the Soviet Union and Communism, which re-established it as the Italian People's Republic. The country was built on the Soviet model, with the General Secretary of the Italian Communist Party acting as the country's de facto leader. Although the Security Police operated in Italy and the country was set up along Soviet lines, the Italians didn't take Communism as seriously as the Russians and tended to mock the Russians whenever they could get away with it.

Crosstime Traffic chose Italy as the location for two gaming shops designed to quietly introduce ideas of capitalism into Italy in the year 2097. While they were detected, and had to close down the gaming shops, they did eventually return with new fronts.

The Italian Peninsula was home to many dangers, including Scylla and Charybdis, along with the Sirens. On his voyage to the Tin Isle, Cheiron just barely made it past these dangers, forcing him to take the southern route around the peninsula during the return voyage.

Italy was invaded by the Soviet Union early in World War III. By the end of February 1951, the Soviets had overrun the northeastern part of the country.[1]Milan fell to the Fifth Guards Tank Army on 30 April. The Soviets then turned towards Turin.[2] By July, they held the entire Po Valley, and the communists of Italy seemed more active.[3]

Still, after these initial gains, Italy was reduced to something of backwater, as Soviet generals were much more interested in using it as a southern road into France. In March 1952, the Soviets made their way into Bologna, although the Italian military denied that the Soviets actually controlled the town.[4]

Italy was allied with Germany in the Axis during World War II. They assisted the Reich in defeating British and Commonwealth forces in North Africa. When the Axis emerged victorious at the end of the war, Italy controlled an empire that was centered on the Mediterranean Sea, and included parts of the Middle East and North Africa. In the 21st Century, Italy was ruled by primarily by the Duce; the monarch, King Umberto III, wielded only symbolic power, but the government still listened to his advice.

Germany compelled the Italian government to perpetrate large-scale massacres of Arabs in their Middle East empire, much as they had enacted anti-Jewish race laws in 1938, which were not part of Mussolini's original Fascist program.

Italy had an excellent football team, and was dependent on revenue from matches against visiting teams. Italian tourists also visited the Reich's capital of Berlin.

Despite the alliance between the Italian Empire and the Reich, there were disputes between the two nations sometimes. Italian fans rioted after the German team Leipzig won a football match against Italy in Milan because the hometeam's goal was blocked on an offside call. The German Federation of Sport reacted by demanding an apology from their Italian counterparts and withdrew from competition with teams from the Italian Empire until the issue was resolved.

After the American and British forces landed in Normandy, the Allies also invaded Italy. Once more, the Germans took the lead in defense, fighting hard to hold a line then falling back a few miles to hold the next using the rugged terrain well.[7] However, with the defeat of Germany, Italy along with western Europe fell to Western forces while the Soviets seized eastern and central Europe. With the final peace, Soviet leader Leon Trotsky soon stirred up trouble in Italy with leftist popular fronts.[8]

Italy remained neutral throughout the war, much to the frustration of the Germans and Austro-Hungarians who wanted access to its strategic locations. Italy was briefly courted by the Entente, but remained neutral.

Despite its neutrality, Italy granted full diplomatic recognition to the Republic of Quebec upon that nation's inception in 1917.

During the interwar years, Italy faced many of the same economic problems the rest of the world did. Benito Mussolini ran a failed bid for office on the promise that he would make the trains run on time.

The peninsula of Italy comprised numerous principalities and independent city states (including the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies) which often went to war with each other. While all Italians shared a common cultural heritage and spoke essentially the same language (though with a great multitude of dialects), there was little chance of their ever uniting politically into a single state. Not only was there a great deal of mutual hostility and jealousy among the various Italian mini-states, but any project of Italian unification would run directly against the interests of the Austrian Empire - which, though a second-rate power on the global scale, was still far more powerful than any Italian state or combination thereof.

However, Italy did very little in the first year of the war. It made no significant contribution to the invasions of Czechoslovakia, the Low Countries, France, Denmark, or Norway. When Germany suffered setbacks in both France and Poland during 1939-1940, Italy did not provide any useful aid to its supposed ally.

Italy did continue to support Sanjuro's forces, contributing troops and tanks to the attack on Gibraltar. Even amongst the Nationalists, Italian troops were viewed with disdain, with a reputation for fighting half-heartedly and fleeing when the opportunity arose. As the wider war continued, Germany's support of the Nationalists dwindled, and Italy followed suit.

By 1940, Italy's involvement in the war was limited to a desultory conflict with Britain in Somaliland. Later that year the Hess Agreement saw Italy make peace with its foes, before Britain resumed its war with the fascist powers in late 1941. To punish Britain, Italy created a new theater of war in North Africa by launching an invasion of Egypt out of Libya.

While some Italian soldiers fought effectively, poor morale among the rest, combined with obsolescent equipment, led to the Italians being driven back into Libya. In the autumn of 1941 the British began laying siege to Tobruk in the face of half-hearted Italian resistance. Two days before the slow-moving British were due to begin their assault on the port, Luftwaffefighters and dive bombers intervened. Shortly after, the British were driven back into Egypt by Walther Model'sAfrika Korps.

Italy continued to participate in a limited capacity in the war, ultimately to its detriment. In the second half of 1943, Marshal Sanjurjo was killed by a sniper, and the Nationalists were finally defeated the following year.[10] In April 1944, Hitler himself was overthrown, and the Nazis removed from power.[11] In short order, Mussolini himself was struggling to keep the reins of power in his own country.[12]

When the Race's Conquest Fleetlanded in 1942, Italy surrendered to the alien invaders less than three months later, and Mussolini was overthrown. He was imprisoned, but was later freed in a raid by Otto Skorzeny and eventually went to the United States. During the fighting the Italian government, along with PopePius XII and the Vatican, grew very cooperative with the occupying Race, a state of affairs that angered most Italian citizens. Rioting began in 1943.

The Race used Italy as a base from which to invade German-held territory, including Croatia in mid-1943. The Germans retaliated by destroying the city of Rome with an atomic bomb smuggled into the city, causing heavy military and administrative casualties for the Race and killing Pope Pius.

Italy's postwar status is ambiguous within the Colonization series. In Second ContactSam Yeager notices an Italian embassy in Little Rock among those of Germany's vassals, indicating that like Romania and Hungary Italy was not annexed into the Reich. Yet in the novel's world map and throughout the rest of the series, especially during the Race-German War of 1965, Italy is not mentioned as being among Germany's 'independent' allies.